Trials Books

Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant. Huge collection. (200+ Works) FREE Author's biography and stories in the trial version.

Great stuff! Just as advertised! Quick and smooth transaction. I'll be back. Thank you!

Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant. Huge collection. (200+ Works) FREE Author's biography and stories in the trial version.

"Bel Ami; or, The History of A Scoundrel" and other Novels, Plays, Short Stories. Excellent compilation!

Due to destructive motives such as the desire of a prosecutor to win a case at any cost, desire of the public for revenge and desire of the police to close a case with any likely candidate, many innocent persons are convicted of crimes in which they have no connection whatsoever.

It is worse to convict an innocent person than it is to let a guilty person go free. However, our system, and many people serving on juries act as if it is worse to let a guilty person go free than it is to convict an innocent person.

It is impossible to understand why juries convict persons who might possibly be innocent. If the juror could stand in the shoes of an innocent person being wrongly convicted, how could that juror ever let this happen.

This is a simply-superb collection of essays/articles on the topic of what can lead to the criminal conviction, and even execution, of suspects who turn out to be, in fact, innocent of the crime they were arrested for.
The points made and facts shown in this book should be part of a mandatory curriculum in high school, especially in view of the media onslaught of incorrect ideas of the criminal process. Most TV dramas reinforce the false "Perry Mason" idea that a successful defense attorney must not only show the prosecution has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, but ALSO must come up with the truly guilty person, who will confess on the witness stand. Broadcast and print journalists insist on saying the defendant pled or was found "innocent," when the correct term is "not guilty." (There's a world of difference between "innocent" which means morally blameless, and "not guilty" which means putting the state to its burden of proof.) The "tough cop" who ignores the inconveniences of the Constitution is as much a hero in fiction, as the "slimy defense attorney" who defends the always-guilty defendant is a villain. All these might be entertaining, but they create a mindset among jurors who decide real-life guilt.
_Wrongly Convicted_ addresses the hard real-life questions of how things can go so wrong that an innocent person (one who had nothing to do with the crime) can wind up convicted and even executed.
Would an innocent suspect sign a confession? Yes; he's coerced into believing it's actually in his interest.
What characteristics of a crime most frequently create a rush to judgment with the conviction of an innocent person? A heinous crime, a marginalized or "outsider" suspect, and/or unreliable evidence.
How do prosecutors avoid their requirement of disclosing facts helpful to the defense (exculpatory evidence)?
Are informants reliable? Why not?
Can fingerprint and DNA evidence be faked? Has it?
What is the role of race?
What role does the disparity of resources available to the government and defense play in conviction of the innocent?
What changes can we make to prevent these convictions of the innocent?

Each essay is well-written. In books like this, the editor must steer a course between overly-scholarly and overly-popular writing. The editors have chosen a middle course. The writing is not so popular that it reads like People Magazine, yet the editors use text with multiple subheadings and just the right amount of quoted material, so that it's very readable. Each essay is followed by its notes and extensive references. There is an extensive Index covering the entire book. The book concludes at a very non-ponderous 280 pages of text.
My only wish is that, in addition to the current book, the editors and authors could produce a high school version, perhaps 40-50 pages of the main points and pertinent examples, suitable to inclusion in a social studies curriculum.

Read this book. Change the system.

For anyone interested in how courts deal with juvenile crime, and for anyone who thinks there must be a better way, read this book. Drawing upon the simple, yet profound idea that children do not turn into adults on a single day, the authors elaborate on the deficiencies of a legal system that is, in fact, largely based upon just that notion. The chapters help us to envision a legal system that would see adolescent development as a gradual and continuous process, and that would not allow prosecutorial ambition alone to determine which young offenders should be held criminally responsible for their actions.

This text provides a great range of literature on issues surrounding youth justice, policy, resettlement and intervention. Students, practitioners and academics alike would all benefit from these chapters as would anyone with a general interest in this area, who would not find the book too 'dry' since the style of writing is excellent - clear, insightful and moving.
The book draws on personal accounts of young people's involvement in crime, their attitudes towards intervention efforts and reflections on why and how the abandonment of delinquent behaviour takes place. Concluding chapters are reflective and devoted to recommendations for policy and interventions based on the personal accounts presented earlier in the book. Each chapter is referenced well and the book benefits from a total of 22 contributors to the book, who all bring with them their own expertise to the area.

This book delivers!! This informative book gives solid information for trackers at all levels. It will give you many tips on map making and plotting your tracks. If you are starting out this book will help you demystify track laying. If you are a experienced track layer it will give you a fresh look at the sport you already love. Even if you never track lay it will give you an appreciation for this skill. It is detailed with out being complicated. It is a book I can recommend to my students without hesitation.

"Absolutely 100% Guilty" is a 6-Tape, 12-Hour program, in which former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Vincent T. Bugliosi explores and explains virtually all aspects of the infamous (and massively bungled) O.J. Simpson murder trial of 1995. I, like many other Americans, was shocked and disappointed when it was announced on October 3, 1995, that the jury had declared Simpson "Not Guilty" of stabbing to death his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Mr. Bugliosi, with his usual flair and no-nonsense style (along with some well-placed humor), spells out in scathing and pointed detail every reason why the prosecutors for the State of California, who were assigned the task of convincing a jury to convict a double-murderer named Orenthal James Simpson, were very nearly totally inept throughout the entire year-long trial, mishandling large chunks of evidence in the case, and even ignoring certain evidence that would have undoubtedly aided their cause greatly.

This special video program, which was produced in 1999, is the "companion" set of videos to Bugliosi's 1996 best-selling book which covers the same topic (entitled "Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder"). This twelve-hour video series, hosted throughout by Mr. Bugliosi himself, is very nearly as detailed as the 513-page paperback edition of his book "Outrage".

This video set consists of not only Mr. Bugliosi's own words -- but there are many interview segments with some of the people who were closely associated with the O.J. trial. Such as: Police Detectives Mark Fuhrman, Philip Vannatter, and Tom Lange. Plus Nicole's sister Denise Brown, Nicole's friend Faye Resnick, L.A. Criminalist Dennis Fung, and several others, who all help to augment Mr. Bugliosi's commentary throughout the program.

I watched the majority of the Simpson trial on television, but via this captivating video series, I have been able to obtain an entirely fresh and enlightened perspective on those proceedings from a keenly-astute lawyer (and ex-California prosecutor) himself, Vince Bugliosi. Vincent's obvious command of the evidence in the case (even though he was in no way officially connected with the trial at all) comes through quite clearly and magnetically during this program.

It's rather startling to learn about the large number of blunders committed throughout the trial by the prosecution team (led by Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden), plus the multiple legal boners doled out by the trial's judge, Lance Ito.

Having a minimal amount of knowledge in the area of official "Rules of Law" pertaining to such a case as I watched the trial throughout the bulk of the year 1995, I had no true sense or inkling that Clark, Darden, et al, were performing so miserably in court -- until watching Mr. Bugliosi's assessment of the trial on these videos (and while reading his "Outrage" publication, which I also highly endorse).

For example, I had always thought when viewing the trial day by day, that there simply must have been SOME legal roadblock which caused the prosecution to NOT present to the jury two of THE biggest incriminating pieces of evidence in the case that would have gone a long way toward proving Simpson's guilt in the two brutal June 12, 1994, murders with which he was charged -- that evidence being: Simpson's 32-minute recorded statement to Los Angeles police the day after the murders (in which he admitted to having been bleeding the night before and further advised the authorities that he just simply couldn't remember how he happened to receive the deep cut on his left hand just hours earlier). .... Plus: The famous "Bronco Chase" of June 17, 1994, when Simpson attempted to flee L.A. in his friend Al Cowling's Ford Bronco -- with gun, passport, disguise, and thousands of dollars in cash safely aboard the vehicle. All of this equipment and money, according to Simpson, was needed to simply visit Nicole's gravesite.

~~ Pauses To Control Fits Of Laughter ~~

I kept telling myself that there MUST be some legal precedent that kept Clark and Darden from introducing this crucial evidence, damning to the defense's case, to the jury. But, alas, there was NO such legal reason to have excluded this critical evidence, and Mr. Bugliosi tells us this during this video program. (No wonder he's so boiling mad at this prosecution team.)

It was later learned that the prosecutors didn't introduce this valuable evidence at the trial for the flimsiest of reasons -- They didn't want the jury to feel "sympathy" toward Simpson. Plus, the lawyers decided not to use Simpson's police statement because they didn't want to have the jury "hear Simpson saying he was not guilty out of his own mouth" (paraphrased quote).

Mr. Bugliosi has a field day with that last piece of inane reasoning. Because, when you think about it for a second, you can see how flimsy (and silly) a reason that is to not introduce a critical piece of damaging evidence against the defendant. It's ultra-silly because the jury ALREADY OBVIOUSLY KNEW that Simpson had pled "Not Guilty" to both counts of murder -- which is the whole reason there was a trial in the first place! Why would hearing him say it on tape make a huge difference?! It's the entire reason they (the jury) were there at all, because he didn't plead "Guilty"!

Unbelievable.

Mr. Bugliosi claims that the recorded police statement given by Simpson on June 13th of '94 was not only a key piece of evidence in the case that never saw the light of day in the courtroom -- but Vince goes so far as to say that if he himself had been the prosecutor in the case, he could have convicted Simpson of murder in the eyes of even THIS awful jury, based on just that one single piece of evidence all by itself! (And knowing how Mr. B. operates in the courtroom, I certainly wouldn't have placed any bets against such a boastful assertion actually being achieved by Vincent. That would have been great to witness indeed -- instead of the weak prosecutorial effort we actually did see take place.)

In addition -- Instead of barely even attempting to strike down the absurd notion of the "Police Frame-Up", which was introduced out of thin air and manufactured from whole cloth by the so-called "Dream Team" of Simpson defense lawyers (including Johnnie Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, and Barry Scheck), if Mr. Bugliosi had been in Marcia Clark's seat in 1995, we most certainly would NOT have had the jury begin deliberations with the notion that any type of "Police Conspiracy" had occurred at any point in time following the Brentwood murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman.

Mr. Bugliosi, on these videos, totally demolishes the idea of a "Police Frame-Up" with respect to the Simpson case. For one thing, Mark Fuhrman couldn't possibly have "planted" the bloody glove on Simpson's property even if he had WANTED to do so -- because 14 separate LAPD officers SAW ONLY A SINGLE GLOVE AT THE MURDER SITE BEFORE FUHRMAN EVEN ARRIVED AT THE SCENE OF THE CRIME!

So, unless somebody got FOURTEEN different police officers to blatantly lie about seeing only ONE glove at the 875 South Bundy Drive murder scene BEFORE Detective Fuhrman even arrived there, then that point alone eliminates the fanciful notion that Fuhrman planted the incriminating glove.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg regarding the "Police Frame-Up" idiocy. Vince tells us lots more on these tapes -- simple stuff too, that SHOULD have been used by Clark and Darden at the trial, stuff that completely eradicates the "Frame-Up and Police Misconduct" line of defense. And it should have been utilized over and over again (relentlessly) by the prosecutors to totally extinguish the groundless and despicable allegations that the low-life defense team made against the LAPD officers, detectives, and lab workers. These police officials, as we can easily see now (with Vincent Bugliosi's help), actually did a very good job in handling themselves throughout the Simpson murder investigation.

But instead of hammering the defense viciously in an attempt to knock down the Frame-Up/Misconduct junk, Clark and Darden (et al) barely even grazed the surface with their weak arguments to the jury on this matter. It's almost as if they themselves (the lawyers for the prosecution) had reservations about fighting these allegations. Based on their actions, it's as if they, too, might have believed the defense's silly "He Was Framed" smoke screen to some extent. Amazing.

Vince methodically takes apart and ridicules the defense team's "Race Card" tactics as well (and deservedly so, IMO). The subject of "Race" was injected into the Simpson case due to the Mark Fuhrman "N Word" tapes that were allowed in as evidence during the trial by Judge Ito. And Vince tells us just why that whole "Sub-Trial" was a sham, and absolutely preposterous, right from the start.

If Mr. Bugliosi had been the lead prosecutor in the O.J. case, there's little doubt in my mind that the outcome of the trial would have been drastically different. Even with the very poor jury that sat in judgment of Simpson (a jury which thought a whopping four hours of deliberation was enough to sort out and evaluate the entire eight months of witness testimony), I'm confident that Mr. Bugliosi could have secured the proper verdict in the case -- and that verdict, per the overwhelming evidence that leads us there, is "Guilty as charged".

Another thing that burns both sides of Vincent's toast during this video program is the fact that he knows that the location (venue) of the trial COULD very easily have been changed. The trial should NOT have been held where it was (downtown Los Angeles, with a predominantly black jury). It should have been staged in Santa Monica, which would have probably changed the make-up of the jury greatly, because Santa Monica is populated by a majority of whites. That white vs. black fact alone might not have meant anything in the long run, but let's face facts -- statistics during and after the trial told all of us that a majority of whites felt Simpson was as guilty as Hitler; while a good-sized percentage of black citizens thought O.J. should walk. Vince gives us the reasons WHY Los Angeles D.A. Gil Garcetti fumbled the ball in this potentially-critical "venue" department.

This whole six-volume set is fascinating to watch, but Tape #6 is by far the most riveting portion of the program, as Mr. Bugliosi concludes the twelve-hour documentary with a lengthy section of "Mock Closing Arguments", complete with Lance Ito and O.J. Simpson look-alikes in the courtroom. Plus actors who fill in for defense lawyers Johnnie Cochran and Robert Shapiro as well.

But Vince does all of the talking on Tape 6 during his "Closing Arguments", as he gives what would have been his Final Summation to the jury if he himself had been the prosecuting attorney in the case against Simpson. Great, great stuff, complete with Vincent's occasional sly, tongue-in-cheek humor (e.g.: "Where does the defense GET guts like this?! Can you BUY them?! I've never seen any for sale here in Los Angeles! Maybe Mr. Scheck brought some with him from The Bronx!"). ~LOL~

Tape Six (all by itself) is most definitely worth the steep price that I paid for this intriguing set of videos (in my humble personal opinion, that is).

These videos contain lots of footage of the actual Simpson trial too, mixed in with the comments of Vincent and the others who are interviewed. Watching Vince evaluate, piece by piece, the various clips we find on these tapes, puts things in perspective. We see a clip -- and then Mr. Bugliosi tells us just why that footage is an absolute embarrassment to anyone prosecuting a man for murder (we see several scenes that play out in that form).

"Platinum Productions" produced this set of "Absolutely 100% Guilty" videocassettes. This progam, in a truncated version, was also made available for a limited time on the DVD format as well. But I have the VHS "Professional Edition", which consists of six individually-sleeved videotapes, housed inside a sturdy and attractive outer slipcase box. It's a good-looking set for the library shelf.

These now-out-of-print videos might be difficult to locate, but (obviously) I feel they are worth tracking down. When this program originally was distributed, a cleverly-titled website -- ojdidit.com -- was constructed for the sole purpose of selling these videos. An appropriate dot-com moniker, IMO. ~wink~

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Product Specifications:

> 6-Tape Set (VHS format).
> Tape Speed: Standard Play ("SP") Mode.
> Run Time: Approximately 2 Hours Per Tape.
> Audio Recorded In Hi-Fi Stereo.
> Video Aspect Ratio: Full Frame (1.33:1).
> In Color.
> Deluxe Boxed Set (Slipcased).
> Outer Slipcase Box Features Gold Embossed Lettering On The Back (Marked: "Vincent Bugliosi's Absolutely 100% Guilty; The Professional Edition").

> Two Other VHS Editions Were Also Marketed -- "The Library Edition", Which Included A Hard-Cover Copy Of Vincent Bugliosi's Book "Outrage" ... And "The Consumer Edition", Which Consisted Of Just One VHS Tape (2+ Hours Of Content).

> List Price (MSRP) For "The Professional Edition": $129.95.
> List Price (MSRP) For "The Library Edition": $249.95.
> List Price (MSRP) For "The Consumer Edition": $39.95.

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My Final "100% Guilty" Summation.........

Ladies and gentlemen of the video-collecting jury -- Vincent T. Bugliosi's "ABSOLUTELY 100% GUILTY" set of videos is an essential item for any collector of O.J. Simpson-trial material. Through the eyes of a man who knows of what he speaks (Bugliosi being a lawyer himself, who has handled hundreds of criminal cases in a stellar career while working in the Los Angeles prosecutor's office, to the tune of the enviable record of 105-1 in felony jury trials as Deputy D.A., and an unblemished 21-0 in murder cases), this special video program succeeds in providing the viewer a candid, refreshing, and completely forthright assessment of the facts in the murder case against ex-football great O.J. Simpson.

If you truly believe that evil L.A.P.D. "conspirators" attempted to "frame" O.J. Simpson for two murders in 1994, I suggest you hunt down a copy of this video set. Vincent can then give you the straight dope on the "Trial Of The Century" -- and he can tell you via his very powerful style of presenting the facts just exactly why O.J. Simpson is "Absolutely 100% Guilty".

An Abundance Of Witches: The Great Scottish Witch-Hunt is a detailed history of witch-hunting and persecution in Scotland from approximately 1658-1662, an era generally thought to be the high point of a turbulent history of violence and hatred for accused witches. The turmoil of political history, Scotland's previous time as an English province, and the revived fervor of Calvinist religion in the Scottish Church accentuated the internal conflict. An Abundance Of Witches does not shy from sometimes horrifying details, including calculated tallies of men and women strangled or burned alive at the stake, fees paid to those involved in hunting, capturing, and executing witches; materials, components, and implements of torture used for such purposes, a search for the psychological motivations behind the slaughter, and more. An excellent and scholarly contribution to Scottish and European history shelves.

I'm not just saying this because Guernsey is the Dean of my law school and a really great guy--this book is excellent. It is very practical and easy to read and understand. Although it's a little pricey for its size, if you need to negotiate ANYTHING, read this book first. My eyes were really opened to what I was doing wrong and how to do them right. This is an excellent book.

Inger Stole's book is an incredibly important tale of a forgotten history, the period in the 1930s when organized citizens stood up to and attempted to limit the power and influence of corporate propaganda in the form of the then nascent and now dominant corporate advertising industry. That fight was lost, as have been most important battles since against the intrusion of corporations into genuine culture and civil society. I hope this is the first of regular future books by Inger Stole who has an important place beside Klein, Ewen, Nader, McChesney and other critics of corporate power over our daily lives as citizens.

This book of poems about the people caught up in the Salem witch trials in the 1690s has an important and innovative technique: it weaves together poetry, historical research, the voices of people from the past, and the voice of the poet in the present doing the research. It would be great to see more poets following Cooley's lead here, and it's a way in which these poems could be significantly influential if they get a wide enough audience. It's a logical extension of New Historicism, the new belle lettre movement, and Cultural Studies. If we're going to acknowledge the subjective and language-based roots of history, then going all the way down that road leads to the kind of poetry Cooley is writing here. It's infinitely more positive, and responsible, then taking that same road into the dead end of apathy or agnosticism about history.

The good thing is that Cooley keeps her history solid. She did your homework, she cites her sources, and she isn't distorting the "facts" to suit her rhetorical ends. These are all things that poets have a bad reputation for when they take on history, even for a moment--see Keats' "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," when everyone just shrugs off the sloppy use of Cortez in the name of "poetic license." Cooley seems to be undertaking a whole new way of approaching "poetic license," redeeming it and moving it forward in a way that is perfectly in tune with her moment in literary history. Having the poems themselves be so moving and well crafted is icing on the cake.

I read the book through in one sitting, and it let me see the way she strikes a nice balance between recurring images, motifs, etc., and finding something new to say and do in each poem. I liked the way Cooley uses the language of the historical figures in a musical and impressionistic way--I know it must have been difficult to provide enough of their voices to convey character and period flavor without letting it crowd out her own voice. Cooley works the two voices together well to let them modulate with one another without being overly theatrical or artificial about it. The mark of a pro.

Cooley makes the wise decision NOT to make her central focus a study of motive: why the first four girls started the lying and why others joined in. This has already been done so many times by other writers taking on the Salem witch trials, most famously of course in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." It was a much better call to investigate what the actions of all parties came to mean within a context of femininity, religion, self-sacrifice, truth & fiction, mystery and history, etc. These aspects of historical investigation make the vehicle of poetry an asset, even a necessity, and not just a clever add-on. It also, importantly, makes it seem like the poetry is there to serve the cause of these misunderstood women, rather than the poet coming across as a creative writer trespassing on the intimate past of these people for her own personal profit or convenience (as in so much bad historical fiction). This is especially strong in "The Waste Book" (the conclusion of which is my favorite pair of lines in the volume).

I had several favorites in this collection--probably "The Salem Witch Trials Memorial" has all of the things I like best all together. The structure works brilliantly to capture the way the mind and the eye work together in a setting like that, and emotionally the interruptions of the names and phrases continually shadows and emphasizes the poet's own (and the reader's) thoughts. The final line is genuinely chilling and appeals to both heart and head in a way that encapsulates the project of the entire collection for me. "Testimony: the Parris House" is another one that sticks to the ribs. So does "Publick Fast"--image, structure, and character all come together well here, and this one is I think best illustrates Cooley's fine musical ear.

I was moved and stimulated by what is written here. Cooley sees both wide and deep, and her writing is simultaneously (not alternately) clear and suggestive.